Be Mindful When Eating With Kids

If you’re eating out with kids, think twice before you place a separate order for each of them! And if you’re cooking for them, know that you can waste a lot of food if you don’t pay attention to how they eat.

It’s so easy to routinely fix the food, put it on their plates, the scrape most of it into the garbage disposal! Worse is when you plunk down $40 or more at a restaurant, and look at the nibbled food on the plates as you leave.

That’s especially the case with young children because they “graze” a lot ~ a pretty healthy way to eat, really!

My recommendation is to share orders when you go out, and DON’T order soft drinks! Just drink water instead. You’ll save a bundle, and everyone will still get enough to eat.

I sat beside my four-year-old granddaughter in a restaurant earlier this week. I ordered a cheese enchilada, and she had a kid’s order of chicken nuggets and fries. She ate about three fries and one chicken nugget ~ about 35 cents worth of the $5 order! The smarter course would have been for me to order black beans and rice with the enchilada, and then split that whole meal with her.

When I make sandwiches at home, I don’t give the kids a whole sandwich, but half sandwiches and fruit instead. (Chips are fine, as long as there’s just a few. I never put a bowl of them on the table!)

I always have some apples in the fridge I can slice when they just want a snack.

Be Careful Where Your Thoughts Take You!

I've been reading some of Wayne Dyer's stuff recently. He writes a lot about spirituality, the power of intention... stuff like that.

But he has some intersting things to say about our thoughts and the power of their vibrational frequencies. By extension, I believe they resonate with food frequencies. So here's something to ponder.

Basically, if we're feeling depressed, sad and unmotivated, the thoughts that support those emotions are low frequency vibrations, and they'll resonate with foods like Lay's salty, greasy potato chips; Krispy Kreme donuts, or a sack of Oreo's.

Dyer would say it's no surprise that that frequency level also attracts what we might label as "bad luck" scenarios in our lives. It's the Law of Attraction.

On the flip side, if you're thoughts are focused on possibilities, solutions, and positive options for your life, your food choices will likely carry a higher energy frequency, such as resides in fruits and vegetables. Generally people whose thoughts are positive, and their choices (i.e. food) are positive, enjoy more favorable outcomes in their lives. Maybe not always ~ but generally.

Check it out.

Just pay closer attention to folks you know who seem to attract good things to their lives; or when life delivers them a challenge, how they respond to it. Also notice how life never seems to change for the people who are always complaining.

I'm betting there may be some correlations with food choices.  Do they value themselves enough to take care of themselves?  Or do their eating habits reflect a belief that they're victims in a life of drama?

It all starts with our thoughts. Which means it's not so much what we DO, but rather how we ARE.

The more relaxed and happier we ARE, the easier it is to make the healthiest choices!

Here's an Easy Dish ~

One shouldn't obsess too much about healthy eating. That's stressful, and stress can undermine the best of diets. Easy is best, and planning ahead makes a huge difference.

My husband had some thawed chicken thighs in the fridge, and I always get concerned when he decides to cook up a meat dish because it all shows up on the table. However, I got to it first and steamed the six thighs, and put half of them back in the fridge to toss with some cooked cous cous or rice, along with some diced veggies, later.

I had some Thai coconut soup (curried!) in my pantry, so I opened a couple of cans of that and included diced chicken from three of the six thighs. We had some crackers and peanut butter with it, and that was plenty.

Before I turned off the lights in the kitchen, I put a couple of cups of wheatberry grain in some water to soak over night. I got a great recipe from Pam Peppin that calls for cooked wheatberries, tossed with walnuts, apple, raisins, parsley, cider vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg and olive oil.

That can then be part of lunch or dinner over the coming week!

Happy New Year!

So much of this food journey is about starting over. And so it is with our lives. We glance backwards at years of broken resolutions ~ but then here comes "grace." Ann Lamott sums it beautifully.

“Grace is the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook.

It is unearned love ~ the love that goes before, and greets us on the way.

It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you.

Grace is the light or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us.”  - Anne Lamott

Now greet this brand new year with faith, confidence, and once again ~ resolve!